


Queen to E4

by eurosthewanderer



Series: The Family From The Cupboard [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Poor Harry Potter, Under the Influence of Horcruxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 00:23:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14780091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurosthewanderer/pseuds/eurosthewanderer
Summary: Harry does not like getting hit. That’s why he’s known how to duck for as long as Aunt Petunia’s been smacking spiders from his tangled hair.He doesn’t think anyone really like getting hit, as a matter of fact.





	Queen to E4

**Author's Note:**

> Wow....so I'm back....I had to get a new laptop and lost around 20,000 words worth of writing for this and other projects but I should hopefully have another installment ready to go in two weeks. 
> 
> That one will give a far better explanation of what's going on with Harry's Horcrux but if you've already figured it out let me know in the comments!! 
> 
> Unbetad so all mistakes are mine.
> 
> If I was making money off of this JK Rowling would sue me.

Harry does not like getting hit. That’s why he’s known how to duck for as long as Aunt Petunia’s been smacking spiders from his tangled hair. He doesn’t think anyone really like getting hit, as a matter of fact.

But people like to hit, even when they won’t admit it.

 

Dudley’s favorite lunchtime activity is giving Harry bruises.  

 

The mornings after the nights Vernon drinks more than a glass of his scotch Harry leaves red streaks in the sink that stain the water pink when he turns on the tap.

 

Mum likes hitting people. He’s certain of that, tucked into the little corner of his mind where she won’t see. His bedroom.

 

His nightmares tell him that.

 

Mum likes cutting people, too. When she has bad dreams, hooded monster become men drenched in their own blood.

 

But his dreams are the worse than hers. They freeze him.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Panting like a dog, she threw protego after protego over her shoulder. The power of the exploding curses cracked the pavement behind her.

 

He needs to keep running.

 

Harry felt himself freeze against his will, his body rolling in on itself like an armored bug.  Rolling towards the rubble, the end of a red braid stinging him across the face. He rolls onto something wet and that’s when he sees her.

 

Someone is screaming.

 

"Avada Kedavra!"

 

Harry’s forehead slams against the ceiling of his cupboard as he wakes up.

 

“Mum?” The eight year old calls out, dazed into the darkness, “Mum? What was that?”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Ripper charges at him, she screams in his head and fire courses through his hands onto the picnic table.

 

It isn’t anything like the time Dudley tripped him and he burnt his hair. It’s a cutting cold beneath his hands, like ice over gravel, burning in it’s own way.

 

Harry shouts falling backwards onto the dirt beneath the park bench, bruising his shoulder against a solitary, clump of grass. He curls his hands toward his chest, palms bright pink and stinging.     

 

Ripper, shrieking in panic, is scrambling away.  

 

_Try curling them into fists._

 

Harry does so and feels his eyes begin to water from the pain before he mutters, “Reparifors”.

 

_Better?_

 

“Yesss” Harry sighs in response, flexing his newly healed, pink fingers.

 

 _Well let’s see how bad it is._  

 

Harry’s handprints are signed centimeters deep into the wooden table, so he just pulls the tablecloth over burnt wood and, after a moment's consideration, puts a plate atop it.  

 

 _Damnation._    

 

"It'll give some park attendant a laugh, Mum." Harry says, rubbing his throbbing palms together.  

 

 _Or make them go preaching about the rise of Satan,_ Lily grumbles back.

 

They don't leave the park till ten past nineteen, following Aunt Marge around, screaming for Ripper.

 

_He's long gone by now. Animals are smart like that._

 

"Like what?

 

_They run and don’t return when they face pain. Keeps them alive._

 

"That curse would have caused him pain?"

 

_During the middle ages it was used by healers to cauterize battle wounds._

 

 _“_ Stolen!" Marge shouts, after the fifth lap around the park. “We have to call the police, Vernon!"

 

_And to kill those that came to harm their patients._

 

She's still blubbering as they drive out onto the highway and are passed by a black car-bike.

 

_Motorcycle, Harry, 1975 Harley Davidson in black._

 

"How do you know that?" He mutters quietly. Dudley gives him a funny look.

 

_Your godfather had one in blue._

 

That must have been

 

Vernon starts grumbling about delinquents and Marge keeps blubbering.

 

“Mum, look..”

 

Peering over the side car of the motorcycle is a squished brown and white face. Ripper tentatively lifts up his muzzle into the wind before letting his jaw fall open into a happy grin.

 

“What a smart dog.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry's ninth birthday starts out with Dudley diving atop him, wailing as he bashes a flailing limb on a wall or the door.   

 

“Wake up, Harry!” Dudley shrieks, wrapping himself like a python, crushing his younger cousin. “It’s your birthday!”

 

“Dudley…?’ Harry slurred.

 

“Get up!”

 

Harry shoved at his cousins chest, groping around for his glasses.

 

“You’ve got to open your present!!”

 

_It’s too early for this._

 

“Come on Harry! Come on! ComeonComeonComeon!”

 

_Happy birthday, baby!_

 

Harry barely manages to get his glasses onto his nose before he’s being hauled into the pastel hallway.

 

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Uncle Vernon threw his hands up into the air as the two boys thundered into the kitchen.

 

“Looklooklooklook!” Dudley grabbed the so called present off the table, waving it in the air.

 

It was thin, wrapped in newspaper and Harry had never been more excited in his life.

 

“Well give it here!” He raised his hands to try and grab his present from Dudley. “Give it up Dudley!”

 

Aunt Petunia stepped around the table and smacked Harry across the face. He stepped backwards and his scar began to throb.

 

“You awful little brat!” She scolded, “Dudders goes out of his way to buy you a birthday present with his own pocket money and this is how you thank him! One would think that with everything that we’ve done for you…”

 

The stove explodes into flame, causing Aunt Petunia to scream in shock and race toward the small fire.     

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_There was a river. A great big river. There were the three brothers. Black haired with skin like chestnuts._

 

Some place between heaven and hell in Harry’s eyes.

 

There is a corpse, ageless in widowers robes as black as his skin.  

 

_They conjured a bridge over this great big river. Green vines flew from their outstretched wands to entwine into the handsomest bridge ever seen._

 

There was a boy, tired and worn away beneath a ragged school uniform, reading a big book, his bare feet soaking in the river water.  

 

_But when they tried to cross a figure in a tattered black cloak blocked their way._

 

There were two angry blond men drawing symbols in the dirt. One raised his hand to the other man’s cheek then they were reaching for each other's lips only to tumble onto the ground, erasing what they'd drawn before he could see it.  

 

_He was death and he loathed being cheated._

 

A pale haired girl in a blue cloak, darkness writhing in her chest, approached them from the bridge, green rotting away beneath her feast. She stopped to watch stringless puppets in furs casting spells as the snow began to fall down from the grey sky onto the bridge.

 

_So he congratulated the three wizards, praising their power._

 

There was a crying women, her hair a bloody gash in the colorless scene, stepping out from behind the cloaked girl. She was speaking, beckoning him towards her with her scarred hand.

 

_He offered them a reward for their cunning._

 

He could not hear until he pressed his nose into her frozen throat as she wrapped her shivering arms around his body.

 

_They gladly accepted._

 

"Death, Harry," she began "is the great trickster."

 

_All but one._

 

"Death," she pressed her frozen breath to his ear, "is an enemy undefeated."

 

_The eldest wizard, a great warrior, desired to be unbeatable._

 

"So Death, ever the craftsman," he shivered against her silent chest, "crafted a wand, unbeatable and they were tricked."

 

_The second wizard desired his not-yet-wife returned to him._

 

"So Death, ever the priest," she whispered as lowly as ever, "found him a wedding ring."

 

_The third desired no boon but could not refuse Death._

 

"So Death, now the Norn," she pressed a kiss to his bare forehead, "weaved him a cloak."

 

_The first died, drunken to sleep and victorious._

 

"Thus Death took his due, my son" She snarled into his ear.

 

_And the next after him, bathed in blood._

 

"Thus Death took his due." She stepped away from him.

 

_And the next, at the hand of his own daughter._

 

"Thus Death took his due."

 

_The second took his own life, his corpse bride ever out of reach._

 

"Thus Death took his due." Her voice rose with the wind.

 

_A girl found his wedding band, alone for her brothers loss._

 

"Thus Death took his due."

 

_The third took off his cloak, a wealthy Lord, and gave it to his young grandson._

 

"Thus Death was given his due."

 

His mother's voice howled with the wind, stepping over the puppets. "Remember that, Harry!"

 

Past the puppets, past the cloaked waif, past the ruby eyed boy with his book, past the mourner and the rutting lions she flew toward the three brothers.

 

_That is tale of the Deathly Hallows._

 

"Mum!" Harry screaming racing toward the falling bridge as she began to dance with the dark haired men.

 

_A popular bedtime story._

 

She turned her awful eyes to him and all he knew was a high laugh and a flash of green.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Queen to E4_

 

Harry moved the piece, glossy under the floating light.

 

_That’s E3._

 

Harry snorted.

 

_Very funny._

 

He placed the piece on E4 and blinked in confusion.

 

_Check._

 

“Who taught you to play chess?” Harry asked, staring at the board. “Grandpa and Grandma don’t sound the type.”

 

_Your godfather._

 

“Really? Severus?”

 

_Sirius preferred cards._

 

“Can you teach me?”

 

 _Once we get a deck. I’ll teach you Exploding Snap but you won’t_ really _get to play until you go to school._

 

 _“_ Who taught you that one?”

 

There's a slamming door down the hall, signally Uncle Vernon’s late return home.

 

_Severus as well. His mother was a gobstone international champion. Did I tell you that?_

 

“No.”

 

Vernon’s feet are heavy in the hallway as he stumbles toward the stairs banging his bulk against some pictures, from the sound of one crashing to the ground.

 

_Yes. She was ranked number one around the world before she got pregnant with Sev and, well….she never competed again after that._

“Vernon?” Harry hears his aunt mock whispering, her light footsteps above his head. “Oh god, get up the stairs.”

 

“There you are pet!” Her husband bellows. “My pretty pet. Come her’ love.”

 

“Did she teach you or Severus?”

 

_She tried. I was awful and Severus would have rather played chess, so she’d given up by the time we got to Hogwarts. Oh and Harry?_

 

“Get upstairs Vernon,” Aunt Petunia sounded exasperated as two sets of heavy feet passed over Harry’s head, knocking the comics Dudley got him for his last birthday off their shelf.   

 

“Yes, Mum?”

 

 _Checkmate_  

  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm @eurosthewanderer on Tumblr. Come shout at me about Harry Potter!
> 
> Please please please lemme know what you think!


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